One man travels Ireland's road to independence, in song

William Camargo / for the Chicago Tribune

Paddy Homan rehearses recently with a bodhran, an Irish drum, for “I Am Ireland” which will have its formal world premiere Saturday at the Beverly Arts Center.

Paddy Homan rehearses recently with a bodhran, an Irish drum, for “I Am Ireland” which will have its formal world premiere Saturday at the Beverly Arts Center. (William Camargo / for the Chicago Tribune)

An ambitious one-man show traces Ireland's road to independence, and the man is singer Paddy Homan.

For hundreds of years and for hundreds of thousands of people, Chicago has provided a welcoming, comfortable and nurturing home for those who trace their roots (their hearts and souls) to Ireland.

One of these people is Paddy Homan, the map of his native County Cork on his broad/happy face and his country's accent still deep in his voice, in conversation and in song. He is an Irish tenor who has used his voice to great and emotional effect since moving here for keeps a decade ago.

Coming to make a new life in a new country is always a brave move, and Homan's latest adventure is also bold. It is titled "I Am Ireland" and will have its formal world premiere Saturday night at the Beverly Arts Center. Understandably, since Homan has become a popular entertainer here and since the buzz about this show has been loud, if somewhat limited, this production is sold-out. But there will be other performances in a future near and far, for Homan and his producer, Michael Londra, and their musical collaborators tote serious ambitions for this show, which has been more than two years in the making.

Londra, a singer-songwriter from Wexford in Ireland, first heard Homan sing some years ago at the Galway Arms, a fine and cozy Irish pub/restaurant at 2442 N. Clark St. He remembers that Homan's voice "rang out across the room and into my heart." He also was "astounded that this sound was not known far and wide, beyond the Cook County line."

When Homan (www.paddyhoman.com) came to Londra with an idea for a one-man show that would chart the course of Irish history, a team was born to bring "I Am Ireland" to life.

"I was inspired when I saw Hershey Felder perform his one-man show for the stage about the music of George Gershwin ('George Gershwin Alone')," says Homan. "I began to think that maybe I might do something similar about Ireland, maybe focusing on one person, but then that idea just expanded and expanded."

It continued to do so and started to take shape during conversations and rehearsals and then in a few special performances. One was held in July at the Lake Forest home of a couple Homan fans. One of those in the audience was actor-producer-writer Mike Houlihan, about whom I wrote a couple weeks ago on the occasion of his creating the first Irish-American film festival.

Wearing his drama critic hat, Houlihan wrote, in his regular column in the locally published Irish American News: "The other night I glimpsed a revelation of Irish revolution through music and songs hundreds of years old … Many of us in the audience had heard the songs before … sung them ourselves as our grandparents taught us. But (Homan) gave us the back story of each of these Irish treasures and they took on a new and more fervent meaning for us all and by the end of the evening all the folks in the room were on their feet singing."

And this is some of what was written by Robert Lyons, a professor of Irish studies at the University of Southern Maine, after another performance earlier this year: "Paddy Homan's love of his country is given full voice in 'I Am Ireland.' What W.B. Yeats captures in his historic poem, 'Easter 1916' ('All changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born'), Paddy captures in this compelling story … through the songs and words of her people. Now and in time to come, 'I Am Ireland' will be the social media of this story, and Paddy Homan, its superb messenger."

Such raves and the BAC sell-out have inflated Homan's head not at all.

"I think of this show as an honor," he says. "It is not so much about me, about Paddy Homan. It's not about the person singing it but the immortal story within each song. The greatest thrill for me is to walk in the footsteps of giants."

Those "giants" are poets and patriots in a show that, Homan says, "celebrates the story of Ireland's quest for independence through the songs and stories of her people. It is a show that gives context to the songs and to the struggles and to the good humor of the Irish people."

It does so in two acts filled with songs, spoken word, images and music from Homan and three other musicians. As Londra puts it: "This show won't make anyone a millionaire. What it will do is tell the story that we are passionate about, it will teach a new audience of the great road to freedom in Ireland and it will bring Paddy's clarion bell of a voice to people who need to hear it. This is why I stepped up to work with Paddy, a gem of a man with honesty rare in my business."

Now, if that sounds a bit hyperbolic, know that it is not.

Homan is genuine, the real deal. Though most people encounter performers only when they perform, and seeing Homan perform is a great treat, I have seen him in another setting, one even more telling about his character.

He grew up with six siblings and a largely absent father. His mother was a homemaker, somehow able to put meals on the table every day, and Homan told me about the day an older beggar come knocking on the door. His mother gave the man a can of beans and gave her son a lesson that he took to heart: "Paddy," she said, "always be there for people."

As a boy soprano, Homan sang in church choirs and high school musicals. He entered the seminary but left after two years, realizing that he liked girls far too well. He eventually found his way to a university program in social work and a nighttime job as a health aide in a local hospital. He came here first to visit a friend in the summer of 2001 and again for another visit a couple of years later. He drove a truck and worked moving furniture and fell in love with the city's lakefront, its skyline and its Irish music scene, which he calls the best in the country.

Moving here permanently, he worked days as a caregiver, tending to frail clients of the Wellspring Personal Care agency. And so it was then that I watched him interact with all manner of aged clients, singing to some and talking to others, his compassion always palpable, and telling me, "It's an honor to be with these folks in their time of need."

At nights he would sing in various venues about town, gathering new fans along the way and operating on this philosophy: "If you connect with your listeners, the music will soar."

"I Am Ireland" connects to centuries back in time and ends in 1916. That was, in case history has buried it in dust for you, when six April days of bloody battle between members of the Irish Volunteers and other like-minded insurgents against the British Army came to be known as the Easter Rising. It would eventually lead to establishment of the Irish Republic and haunt that country forever. There will be all manner of celebrations during next year's centennial, but it is hard — almost impossible — to imagine any will be as moving, entertaining, enlightening or soaring as "I Am Ireland."